With Tropical Cyclone Dana approaching, India is closing schools and airports on Thursday, while in the Philippines tens of thousands of people are fleeing their homes due to Tropical Storm Trami, Asian media reported.
India evacuates more than a million
More than one million people will be evacuated in the Indian state of Odisha, located off the coast of the Bay of Bengal, due to the approaching tropical Cyclone Dana․
Major airports will be closed overnight, including the key centre of Kolkata, where heavy rain is already drenching the sprawling metropolis.
The eye of the storm is forecast to make landfall early Friday near the coal-exporting port of Dhamara, about 230 kilometres (140 miles) southwest of the Kolkata metropolis.
It is also expected to affect neighbouring low-lying Bangladesh, where interim government chief Muhammad Yunus said “massive preparations” were underway.
The crashing waves are expected to inundate coastal areas, with water levels rising two metres (6.5 feet) above normal high tide levels. Odisha Health Minister Mukesh Mahaling said “about one million people from coastal areas are being evacuated to centres where the cyclone is passing through.”
Very heavy rains
In the neighbouring state of West Bengal, government minister Bankim Chandra Hazra said that “more than 100,000 people have already been shifted to safer places.”
Businesses in Puri, a popular beach resort, have been ordered to close and tourists to leave. Kolkata airport director Pravat Ranjan Beuria said the airport would suspend flights overnight Thursday due to “predicted strong winds and heavy to very heavy rainfall.”
The Bhubaneshwar city airport will do the same, while dozens of trains have been cancelled and ferries from Kolkata have been ordered to remain in port.
Authorities in the states of Odisha and West Bengal have also closed all educational institutions in areas that could be hit by the rampage and deployed a total of 56 teams of the national disaster response force. The Indian Coast Guard said it was on high alert and mobilised its vessels and aircraft.
Tropical Storm Trami wreaks havoc in the Philippines
Tropical Storm Trami has killed at least 26 people and forced more than 150,000 people in the Philippines to flee their homes.
Trami, known as Severe Tropical Storm Kristine, pounded the main island of Luzon with torrential rains, causing widespread flooding and landslides.
With maximum sustained winds of 59 mph, the storm was moving westwards across the mountainous northern Cordillera region towards the South China Sea, the state weather agency said in a weather bulletin issued at 11 a.m. (0300 GMT).
It warned of heavy and intense rain, flooding, landslides and storm surges in some northern provinces.
Officials said that in most cases over the past few days, people died because they drowned or were covered by landslides. All of these have occurred in the central Bicol region, including the city of Naga, where 14 deaths were reported on Thursday.
Trami struck the northeastern town of Divilacan in Isabela province. The city’s emergency management chief Ezikiel Chavez said there were no reports of fatalities. The Philippines typically records an average of 20 tropical storms a year, which often bring torrential rains, high winds and deadly landslides.
